Dear Dinosaurs,
What one can say about velociraptor life by comparing it to living
animals with large claws?
The velociraptor claw was used either for digging in ground (like in brown
bear), or for breaking termite mounds (sloth bear), or for killing prey
(polar bear), or for climbing trees and tearing epiphytes (spectacled
bear), or aided running (longspur), antipredator defense (cassowary),
dominance fights (chicken spur) or for several these purposes at once.
:))))))))))))
Practical conclusions:
1. In one family, one morphological adaptation is often used for many
different purposes,
2. Adaptation per se tells us often surprisingly little about lifestyle,
3. Don't pass explanations between species (if Velociraptor did X it
doesn't mean that Utahraptor did it too),
4. I is nice to support research with detailed studies on anatomy. I would
ask a few questions, like:
Is Velociraptor claw sufficently robust to withstand stress? Is there
evidence of stiff muscles and tendons supporting toe? Does the leg anatomy
really allow fast and agile kicking forward? What position would be
optimal - standing animal kicking forward or animal holding to
presumed prey and kicking downwards? Wouldn't the ankle and toes break
when prey struggled during attack? Which muscles would generate enough
tearing power?
J.